"Studies show" is to the modern secular college graduate what "Scripture says" is to the religious fundamentalist.-Dennis Prager

As I’ve mentioned before, I like to listen to Dennis Prager in the morning, and today he had an interesting guest. This physicist who was also a religious man had written a book in which he demonstrated present knowledge of science does not disprove God and may even strengthen the case for a higher being. I’d read pretty much the same thing in Darwin’s Black Box, a very good book written by Michael Behe about the irreducible complexity of cell structures, but it was still interesting to listen to. I’ve often wondered why anyone would want to believe that we were just a cosmic freak occurrence; a one in 13 billion shot at achieving life. It seems that life would be little bit more depressing to such people. Then again, some people like to be depressed; victimhood seems to be all the rage these days. Either way, this scientist was very articulate and clear headed; he handled many questions from the audience and did a good job of making very complex issues understandable. Sometimes he’d descend into scripture; he made a very interesting point which Dennis himself has made, but may have done an even better job. He stated that the book of Genesis in the bible is not a “How to create a Universe for Dummies,” that it wasn’t giving us detailed information; rather it was a scathing indictment of the current state of religion at the time. Thousands of years ago, most religions consisted of worshipping nature as it was the most unpredictable and powerful influence on mankind. Humans attributed all types of mystical powers to inanimate objects such as trees or the sun. The book of Genesis states categorically that these are just things; creations by an all powerful supernatural being that exists outside of nature and is, in fact, the master of it. It can be argued that this argument was the first basis for mankind to actually be interested in discovering what makes the world tick as opposed to sacrificing goats to some sun god. Although religious dogma may have gone the to the opposite extremes in the dark ages, it still remains that this strange religion from the Jews is the first to think outside the box, or nature.

I had a signing today with a Mexican fellow who was studying to be a nurse. He was about average height, weight and looks…about as average as you can get. The only striking feature was his wispy mustache that didn’t quite want to grow completely in, sort of like the Mexican comedian Cantiflas. Talking with him, I could see that his eyes were the eyes of an exhausted man; I just assumed that he must have been studying and working, burning the candle at both ends. As our conversation continued, I realized I was only partially right. He was getting the house refinanced so he could take out money to pay to his recently ex-wife. His parting words were, “Never get married.” Hehe…like I haven’t heard that one from my dad before. I know it’s in fashion to blame the man for everything that goes wrong in a marriage, but as I see a lot of court cases, I have to say that the man usually gets the shaft regardless of whether he’s a bad guy or not. I’ve looked at hundreds of divorce cases and I can count on one hand the amount of custody cases that were in favor of the husband. I’ve heard the horror stories from the women’s point of view of the ex not paying, but I’ve heard just as many horror stories from the men of being kept from seeing their children. Hell, I’ve seen a messy divorce up close; my parents didn’t exactly split on good terms and I’ve seen how it becomes a game to turn the children into allies on one side or another. Being that the man’s side is already handicapped for being a guy, guess which side usually wins out? I can understand the advice, but it’s still not worth taking. You can’t live your life running scared from every shadow that may poke it’s head at you.

Since I haven’t gotten around to it, I must discuss the movie I watched this Saturday evening, Matrix Revolutions. I’d say don’t read this if you don’t want the movie spoiled, but I’m not sure I can spoil it more than the directors already have. To say I’m disappointed would probably be an understatement. Let me start off by saying that I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one; personally, I thought the philosophy was pretty simplistic and the themes have been explored by better writers like Philip K. Dick or even Heinlein. The fusion of a silly kung fu movie and a sci-fi story with more to it than fight the big boss and blow stuff up was what made it work. It was a smart action flick; it had real characters that were personable and extraordinary having exciting adventures that had a purpose and even questioned existence itself, if in a half-baked intellectual way. What made it even more engrossing was that it was the best type of sci-fi; a fantasy story set in this world maybe even down the street from your office building. This is why stories like Harry Potter work; you can imagine yourself joining along with the heroes. This is probably the main reason the sequels really don’t work.

In the first story, we have three main heroes and a villain. In the sequels, we have more characters than a Tom Clancy novel; in fact, I don’t think Neo was even in half of this most recent movie. Even worse, Morpheus, who was transformed into a quixotic Yoda by the second movie, could have stayed home in bed for this 3rd installment and we probably wouldn’t have missed him. They included these pointless scenes involving Neo being trapped between the Matrix and reality. Why? Where is it? How did he get there? Being the filmmakers felt no need to tell us, my only theory is that if they didn’t have to get him out, Morpheus would have been in the movie for about 10 minutes. At least it was 15 minutes we didn’t have to endure with boring characters from Zion. There’s a whole bunch of characters running around Zion that I certainly have nothing invested in and, quite wrongly, have me rooting for the robots to kill them and get them off the screen. When Neo was trying to rescue mankind from enslavement, I felt as though he was fighting for all of us; instead, all you see is him fighting for the ridiculously dull Ravers dressed like orphans who make up Zion. Not once in the sequels do you even see regular joe schmoe on the street; instead the Matrix seems to suddenly been taken over by all these programs with even less personality than the Zionists. Because I have ceased to care about anybody in the story, it’s a lot easier to point out all the plot holes and inconsistencies that would have been covered by a fun ride…and boy, are there a whole lot of problems.

I think the most galling thing about this was the fact that had Neo just walked through the door the architect wanted him to, everything would have ended pretty much exactly as it did. Trinity still died, the Matrix reset itself to keep enslaving the humans there, Zion was reduced to a crippled state and humans were still forced to live under the ground like rodents until the machines decided it was time to clean house again. I’m not sure if they were going for this irony…personally, I think they just wanted us to pay another 8.50. This may be the most frustrating thing about the movie; nothing actually gets accomplished…other than me shelling out a bunch of money to see some explosions and people walking around on the ceiling. I think I got the crap end of the stick on this one. I think they should have just gone campy with this movie and gotten it over with. If you’re going to have Neo and Agent Smith flying around in midair, why aren’t they throwing fireballs and mouthing inane Japanese phrases? If you’re going to have Neo’s character appear so stupid in not recognizing Agent Smith in another body for a good 5 minutes of dialogue, why not turn it into an Abbott and Castello “Who’s on First” routine? If you’re going to have Trinity deliver a 15 minutes soliloquy with 4 pipes sticking out of her chest, why not have Neo have to knock her out as she keeps shouting,”I’m not dead yet! I think I’m getting better!” Once the war was declared over and the Zionists in their caves were celebrating, why didn’t they bust out a D.J. and break into another impromptu rave dance? Seriously, there were many opportunities missed here. The only one who seems to have gotten the joke is Agent Smith, who camps up his part better than even Adam West could have done. Either way, I’m just going to pretend the Matrix was a very cool movie and the two sequels just didn’t happen. Kind of like Alien 3…or Godfather 3…or those Pokemon sequels. Seriously, did they really think they could match the perfection of Pokemon, the first movie?

Anyways, that’s enough about a bad movie. I had a signing this morning about 3 blocks away from work. It was right across the street from MOCA, or for those that don’t give a fig about art, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Actually, if you don’t give a fig about art, you might enjoy the place. I wouldn’t classify most of the crap in it as art. Thomas Edison referred to inventing as 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. This is the problem with this modern fashion art. It’s all reversed; people do things for originality alone and to hell with any skill. In an invention, you need a skilled craftsman for something to work; lots of people thought it would be cool to be able to talk to their friends long distances but only one was able to actually get it to be feasible in the marketplace; Alexander Graham Bell. In this fashion art, it’s there to look pretty; practicability be damned! I’ll take the skilled craftsman any day over the hack who throws paint on a canvas and tells you it’s art. Oh, right, I was talking about my signing. The man cut a striking figure; he was taller than I am and seemed even more towering by the lanky, outstretched arms…sort of like those aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He had a huge ring in his ear that would have made him look piratical if not for the conventional, close cropped haircut that made it seem garish instead. Wow…I’m on a roll with my adjectives today. Hopefully, this will be an exemplar of things to come. Hehe…and I managed to get my word of the day into a sentence. 2-2! Anyways, he works for Phantom of the Opera as their special effects manager which seems like a very cool job. This is one of the best parts about my signing side gig; I get to meet people with unconventional jobs. Maybe not as cool as the guy who was the zookeeper at the Playboy Mansion I happened to visit that one glorious day, but it’s still pretty unique. It turns out he lives really close to where my Aunt up in Sacramento lives. Either way, it was a nice, calm, by the book signing that I love to accomplish. Nothing like it was on Friday with all the mistakes and screw ups…thank god for small favors.

The score: 77-0. This is why I hate college football. The two teams aren’t important, but one was the almost inhuman Oklahoma Sooners who are unbeaten and are giving the beating of a lifetime to every team they run into. The other poor suckers were Texas A&M who were humiliated on national television and will have to live with the shame of having been beaten by 11 touchdowns. Think about that…what are they supposed to say? Well, it was much closer than it looked? What about the people watching a crap game like this? This must be the equivalent of watching Jessica Simpson competing on Jeopardy. I’m thinking a mercy rule needs to be enforced by the time a team goes up by 50…which is sad in and of itself.

This Friday I had to redo a signing that I brought up last week with these three asian ladies. It didn’t go so well last time as the company screwed up about 5 things. They sent me a new package with a week to have taken care of all the problems. Would you like to wager a guess on whether or not they fixed everything? It’s quite sad, really. I wrote detailed directions concerning the corrections which were pretty simple yet they couldn’t even correct the biggest screw up; the lady’s name was still spelled wrong. Needless to say, the signors were not in a good mood…of course, this could also have resulted from a mix up on the time and the fact that I was given a contact phone number that could contact nobody involved in the signing. Just another day in the life of an independent notary, really.

Once I finished this little task up, I headed over to my friend Jimmy’s place. I had nothing to do for the evening and I figured I’d wait out the Friday night traffic watching basketball. Fitting in with my predictions this week, the Lakers lost their first game in a real stinker of a performance by almost 20 points. Personally, I’m not sold on the greatness of the team just yet. They’ve improved in some ways as they have a real point guard for once, but their defense is a mirror image of the Dallas Mavericks; score more points than the other team. You’d think their defense would be drastically improved just by making Derek Fisher, their usual point guard, sit down. He’s the type of player who helps other point guards look like superstars in the playoffs as he ineffectually attempts to guard them. I will say he spends a lot of time on the floor; not that he plays a lot, but that he spends more time on his back than a 20 dollar hooker. I’ve theorized that he has an inner ear problem which keeps him from being able to stay on his feet for more than 2 minute of playing time as he seems to just fall down for seemingly no reason. I’m not sure he would even be good enough to back up most point guards in the league, but hey, he is the best third string point guard in the league. It makes you marvel at how the Lakers have managed to win 3 championships with this Albatross around their necks.

After the game, my friend Mr. T had a pot luck to go to which was being held for people involved in a Vietnamese film festival and he asked if I would like to come. Being that I’m not Vietnamese, could never even hope to pass as even Asian in a dark room and last was involved in theater back in high school, I could expect to stand out as much as Ben Stein at a rock concert. Of course I said yes…you don’t pass up opportunities like this. We picked up his friend, the K-man and being as it was a pot luck, K-man and I had to go pick up something to bring. We ended up just buying a 12 pack of Corona. A word on K-man…he’s a very positive guy. He talks like a salesman and is supportive of any idea that comes out of your mouth. He could probably find something positive about me telling him the earth was about to crash into the sun…I guess I wouldn’t have to return those overdue movies I rented. Hey, I can play this game too! Anyways, being I’ve gotten lost in my own backyard, I was depending on either of them to get us to the location. They weren’t so good at directions either. It was literally the blind leading the blind. After about a hour of wandering about aimlessly through the city, I finally broke down and asked Mr. T for a map book so I could find where we were going. Of all my learned skills, very few have come in as handy as being able to read a Thomas Guide. Of course, I had to look for his in the trunk. I can say that Mr. T is ready to play any sport you can think of…he had a tennis racket and a basketball, a glove and a baseball; the guy is prepared for any spontaneous play he’s likely to stumble upon. He did actually have a Thomas Guide…from 1983. I have no idea how he had a map book almost as old as we were, but luckily the area we were in was even older. It only took 10 minutes to get to where we were going as it turned out we had passed it at least 3 or 4 times in our wanderings.

We finally arrived and I was introduced to some very interesting people. There was the girl throwing the pot luck, who, with two other girls make up a spoken word performance trio named Mai Piece. They even performed a couple of poems for us. Pretty dirty, too. Watching three giggling asian girls reading poetry about sex was about as bizarre as it gets for me on a Friday night, anyways. They told us that they normally do better with more rehearsals and the lightings and their guitars and a stage…blah blah blah. I’m sure even with that they still would have sucked. The only way it would have been salvaged was if they performed it naked…it wouldn’t have made the poetry better, but at least we’d have something to distract us from listening to it. They were very nice as was everybody else there. It was a surprise for me as I’ve ran into my fair share of “artists” and they usually are so caught up in themselves that they hardly notice anybody else.

I have to bring up one of the strangest characters that was at this little shindig. His name was Val, I believe, and he was quite a card. First off, he was a very slight, effeminate looking asian guy with very graceful movements and a habit for striking a girly pose. He liked to say things to get a rise out of people, such as he liked it when people pulled his hair. He had a whole soliloquy on how he hated showering as it affected the smell of his hair and took away the natural style that it received as he slept on it. To be honest, I don’t think he was as weird as he acted; he seemed to just like to see how far he could push people. Either way, he was pretty effective in convincing most everyone that he was…well, to put it bluntly, a weirdo.

I also had a discussion with another guy named Tony about his art. You see, Tony is in a fine arts school and was working on sculpting at the time. I’ve always been fascinated by this particular field so I asked him what he was using…Clay, perhaps? Maybe metal? Playdoh even? No…the most I could get out of him was he was using television monitors to display fire. I hope he isn’t paying a lot of money for this school, because that is not sculpting. That’s wasting your fucking time. I know fashion art has really pushed out all the actual skill that people used to learn in order to paint or what have you, but t.v. monitors in a sculpture? What kind of a crap is that? Whatever happened to making a guy on a horse, or just a horse even? Where is the skill in playing a video of flames on a monitor? Andy Warhol once said, “Art is whatever you can get away with.” In this day and age, that seems to be the case. Nobody wants to see a beautiful painting of a landscape or a person that actually looks like the subject…no, they’d rather look at an unmade bed, a blank canvas or feces smeared on a backdrop. I hope Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns pay for what they’ve wrecked on these poor, impressionable young artists.

I had a signing today with a middle aged black lady who had a lot to say. She was in her late thirties, average looking, and lived in, well, the hood. She said she bought the property because it was cheap, and compared to other properties of similar size in Los Angeles, it was. She thought it wouldn’t be so bad living in a neighborhood with her “brothers and sisters” as she called them, but she had very quickly changed her mind. Referring to most of them as criminals and degenerates who wanted to bring down those more successful then themselves, she was pretty much ready to leave the area and rent it out to a friend. She also elaborated on her romantic life with way too much information. Stating that black men were a bunch of head case losers with no money or jobs and with emotional or physical baggage (i.e. children from previous relationships), she had pretty much given up on ever getting married. Also, the successful black men that she did meet didn’t want to date black women; they preferred white ones. This was a vocalization of a trend I’ve seen in my travels as a notary; there is a surprising number of single black women and a distinct lack of black men owning property. It seems that these women manage to make it themselves while the men do god knows what in the meantime probably living at home or off their girlfriends. I think that movie Baby Boy had a message somewhat like this; lots of black men refusing to grow up. It’s a tragedy, really. Black women seem to have an even bigger disadvantage than just being black; they literally can’t find a good man. The lack of fathers in the ghetto is obviously one of the main causes of this situation. Hopefully, now that welfare reform has been enforced, it’ll force people to be more responsible. It’s the only thing I can think of to fix it; not more laws or bills. The government’s done enough damage.

Today, hard at work yet again, I was able IM with Moodsquad today about the state of the Lakers.  Just two weeks ago, he wanted Kobe traded as quickly as possible and was sure he was done as a player.  He was about to become the next Penny Hardaway; several great years, then to sink into obscurity and role player status.  He may have been a little hasty; the silent killer of the game last night and savior turned out to be Mr. Bryant, defendant.  After the Bucks had convinced themselves that they were about to beat the unbeatable foe, Kobe stuck a dagger in their heart and twisted it a couple times for good measure.  I can't imagine how the Bucks felt after this loss; they lead almost the entire game and then blew it in the last couple of minutes.  I guess what I'm trying to say is I think everybody has reported the news of Kobe's death prematurely.  Besides a lack of first step speed and conditioning, he seems to be the same player that's won 3 championships in the last 4 years.

Moodsquad brought up an interesting fact.  Of the head coaches in basketball, only 2 of them have ever won a championship!  Can you believe that?  Only Popovich of the Spurs and the Zen master Phil Jackson have won it all.  I know basketball is full of dynasties, and that Phil has been the coach of 9 of the last 13 championships, but that's a bad situation for the league to be in.  What are these coaches supposed to say?  Ummm...maybe this year it'll be different?  At least we're consistent...we always lose the big one?  I know the story is always about how the Yankees dominate the sport of baseball, but they haven't won a championship in 3 years.  There have been a whole bunch of teams in the last 14 years that have won the World Series.  This could be the reason that basketball has been losing ratings lately...you really DO know who's going to win it every year.  Hopefully the influx of the new guys, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James can help it because despite all the rape charges, drug charges, egos and gangster references, I really do love this game!

The Matrix finale has been released today and I can honestly say I really don't care.  I mean, I will see it.  In fact, I've already made plans to see it this weekend, but it could have been Brother Bear for all I care.  The last movie was such sound and fury signifiying nothing that I can hardly work up the energy to care about the conclusion.  It's usually the case that sequels are inferior to the originals; usually the movie makers take the easy way out and make the exact same movie over again with more explosions.  I guess I really shouldn't have expected more out of the Matrix, but the first one was such a breath of fresh air and such fun that I expected they might be able to continue the ride.  Oh well, at least Return of the King is coming out; that's one series of movies I have yet to be disappointed in.  Lord of the Rings has been much more entertaining than the actual books they're based on.  Maybe for you Tolkein purists it's not as good, but I am very happy to do with less about detailed descriptions of their dinners and goofy songs as long as it's a compelling story.  So far, I'm compelled.  Compelled to spend 9.50 and sit through a 3 hour movie to see what happens.  That's about as compelling as it gets.

Only one other incident caught my attention today.  I was listening to Dennis Prager, my favorite radio talk show host, and he was once again bashing television.  He specifically brought up that popular show, 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter(Good god, is there a more unweildy, stupid title out there?) and he was disappointed in how they resolved the death of the star, Jack Tripper...I mean, John Ritter.  He says that his death was incorporated into the show and that the family managed to get over the loss in 22 minutes.  Dennis was not happy about how they dealt with a complex and powerful issue in the span of an episode and thinks it's not good for society to see and think that's how it works.  Personally, I think he's putting far too much into the influence of the show.  I'm never a fan of comedies trying to have a "very special episode" and deal with serious issues because that's not what we watch a comedy for.  We watch it simply for escapism; we want to laugh and forget about all the terrible things going on in the world and maybe even our lives.  It reminds me of that old 40's movie, Sullivan's Travels; a rather moving story about an idealistic Hollywood director that's famous for making comedies but wants to move and influence people.  He decides to do a movie about the pain and suffering going on during the depression and be taken seriously as an artist.  He finally decides at the end that people suffering don't want to see more of it; they just want a little bit of levity in an all too serious world.  I can understand how you might think the simplification of death in a comedy can bring false expectations to society, but why stop there?  Why not the simplification of romance movies where people find their perfect mates and live happily ever after?  Or how about the fact that the good guys usually win in t.v. shows and movies without ever having to compromise their morals?  Aren't these just as ridiculous as what was done in 8 Rules?  I like to think that people have a brain and can separate reality from fiction, and for those who can't, they've got bigger problems than a t.v. show.  Besides, that problem is hardly new; Cervantes wrote a whole epic about a guy who had problems with accepting reality, Don Quixote.  Sure, maybe much of televsion programming is inferior in quality and coarse in nature, but they explore the exact same concepts as Shakespeare or Moliere.  Nobody worrys when a person reads Romeo and Juliet that they will get dangerous ideas on love and death.  Why is that?  Probably because if you're going out of your way to read it, you probably have a brain.  It sounds to me like prejudice, really.  It's an assumption that people who watch t.v. are morally and intellectually inferior to those who appreciate the classics and the arts.  I don't know about you, but I understand Hitler was a very cultured guy with a very deep appreciation for art.

After watching the Bucks blow a victory against the “unstoppable” Lakers, I decided I needed to start reading one of the myriad of books that line my shelves that I haven’t gotten to due to more important things…like Joe Millionaire. Since the last book I read was a weighty historical tome about the entire history of the Ottoman Empire, I was looking to burn through a fun page turner full of impossible action and witty dialogue. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything by Bernard Cornwell I haven’t read yet, so I decided to finally start reading the biography of John Adams I bought for my vacation but decided at the last minute it was too damn heavy to bring. I’m very glad I made this decision as it’s opened my eyes to a very important American character who I know far too little about. Damn public schools. Anyways, I’m a very big admirer of the Founding Fathers of our country and I don’t think they get nearly as much love and credit as they deserve nowadays. These men sacrificed everything in the name of justice and principles and the most we can do is combine George Washington’s day with Abraham Lincoln’s to make a meaningless “President’s Day” and make a disparaging movie about Jefferson knockin’ the boots with his slaves. Horrible, really. I’ve read much on the Revolutionary war including a biography of George Washington who was an extraordinary man completely different from what the common knowledge of him is. Not only did he tell lies, but he was technically the head of his country’s intelligence department spreading dissemination to the British! He was almost like James Bond…only without the cool gadgets. Or dalliances with beautiful women, or a drinking problem…o.k., he’s not really anything like James Bond, except for the fact that they’re both British. Anyways, in my readings I have always found John Adams to be the butt of many jokes at the expense of the hero worship bestowed upon Thomas Jefferson, but it seems he was more of an everyman than the aristocratic Jefferson.

“We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune-in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety.” No, that’s not a quote from the Howard Dean campaign; it’s the words of John Adams written in his lengthy and detailed journals just before the Continental Congress met in 1776. As you can see, it’s in line with probably every era. We always have very little confidence in our leaders as they apparently have their own lack of self-confidence, and yet, sometimes they surprise us. It’s quite amazing really; you read history books about all these important figures and you never really see them as living, breathing men and women, but as cardboard cutouts that serve their part in history as though it was ordained. Reading the actual thoughts gives you a glimpse into the type of people they were, and strangely enough, it often mirrors our own. We know that the American Revolution would be ultimately successful, but to the people involved, it was a scary, unpredictable time rife with dangers from armies or disease. If you think you’re stressed out about the Iraq war, imagine what it was like to have 20,000 soldiers within riding distance from your house ready to crush any who would stand up against them. When you look at all the instances in history that were decided by the smallest of details, it makes you quite thankful that these men were the ones in charge of America’s destiny. We could have ended up in endless civil wars, a monarchy or countless other horrible choices. Somehow we ended up with the best damn government on the face of the Earth where changes occur peacefully as opposed to the bloodshed that was quite common in the past. I think this is what impresses me most about the Founding fathers; not their intelligence or tenacity, but their self control. As Lord Acton said, Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Somehow, with a strange combination of deeply held religious convictions, an open mind to a new line of thought regarding humanism, and a deep sense of justice they managed not to screw everything up. George Washington actually walked away from the Presidency! Nobody voted him down or ran him out on a rail; he chose to leave on his own. How many politicians can you think of that would do that today? I don’t know if it was the right men at the right time or just the right men choosing it was their time. I’d like to believe it’s the latter as it fits in with my belief that we aren’t just wandering in a random universe with no control over our future, but a free thinking race that can make our own tomorrow. I sure hope so…

Castro Street had really expanded by the time we got back to it. Like the many headed Hydra (I figured I’d go with a Greek reference again), Castro was starting to live up to it’s reputation. There had to be a good 100,000 folks partying down. Unfortunately, they stopped the alcohol consumption on the street this year, so it apparently wasn’t as cool as last years. This was what I heard anyways; it was pretty damn wild to me. We listened to this funk band play hits of the 70s while dressed in multicolored wigs and revealing outfits…and that was just the guys! The female back-up singers were mighty cold; you could tell if you looked at their tops close enough. Changomo somehow managed to start talking to the Girls Gone Wild film crew while they were cruising the street. In his words though, he choked. They asked him to do something “wild;” what that would entail being he’s a guy I have no idea and it probably stumped him too. It’s not like he can flash his chest or anything. Willy decided at about this point to take a picture with all the women that he could. This is going to make for some entertaining viewing when he develops those pics; he has pictures with nurses, scantily clad women with one asking to be spanked(that should be a good shot), more nurses…there really were a lot of nurse costumes. One particular group of girls was not amused by his request as they were being questioned by several of San Francisco’s finest as one looked like she was about to be arrested for public intoxication…I believe their direct phrase was ”Fuck off!” Changomo took exception to this bit of rudeness, but I could understand their apprehension, so we managed to drag him off before he gave the cops a different target for their hassles. It was about this time that my stomach began to rebel against that drink I forced it to endure and I was really damn tired what with no sleep and all the driving, so I was ready to head back to the hotel. I ended up escorting Changomo’s wife back as well as she was up past her bedtime. I swear, she’s like an old woman; has to be in bed by 10 or she melts or something. Anyways, there were no taxis to be found and we ended up having to walk about a mile and a half back. I did manage to get into the room before I collapsed into hibernation. Although I barely made it to 2 a.m., I considered it a fairly successful night. I saw some of the strangest shit I had ever seen, had caramel apple slices at a gay man’s house (hmmm….that doesn’t sound right), and partied with some of my oldest friends. Good times.

The next morning after we finally became fully conscious, Willy and I headed over to my Dad’s house in the Oakland hills. It was empty for the weekend as he and his new wife went to Jamaica with the kiddies to celebrate their wedding anniversary. He purposely got married on Halloween just so he wouldn’t forget his anniversary this time. I guess it’s as good a reason as any, and I’m sure his new wife appreciates at least some effort on his part. Jamaica is a god damned paradise too, so there better be no complaints. Willy had never been to my pop’s house so I gave him the tour. It’s a beautiful home built right on the hillside with the first level being the top floor with the other two floors built beneath. He just finished the last level which I believe he christened the Money Pit when it was finally completed only 5 months after it was supposed to. I can’t complain; there is a guest room down there that I can now use when I visit. It’s kind of strange living away from my parents in the fact that they moved away from me. Isn’t is supposed to be the other way around? We washed up and were joined by Changomo and his wife later that day. We were going to drive up to Napa and I suppose do the hair of the dog and keep drinking, but that didn’t happen. The reason for it not occurring is actually kind of stupid; we started watching the World Series of Poker. I’m not sure why this was so enthralling, but we couldn’t stop watching. I was rooting for “Dutch” Boyd, this young guy who looked like Kurt Warner but acted like Ben Affleck. He could do all types of tricks with his chips, had attended college at 12, went to law school at 15…yeah, he was way overqualified to be a professional gambler. He just seemed like he was straight out of that movie Rounders, though. He ended up finishing 18th, but he was happy as hell to have gotten that far. Changomo loved Scotty Nguyen, who was a previous champion and talked a whole bunch of trash in broken English. You really had to see him to believe it. In point of fact, there were 3 Nguyens all competing in the final stage of the Championship; I guess Vietnamese really are good at gambling. With that said, I’m not sure what Newjen’s problem is. He’s Vietnamese but a TERRIBLE gambler! I guess it must have skipped his generation or something. Watching this show made me reminisce back to high school where Willy, Changomo, Moodsquad, Johan and Jon used to play poker almost every day after school for hours. We never really lost a whole lot of money until we got out of high school…maybe that’s why we stopped playing. It’s a lot easier to recover from losing 2 dollars than from 150 bucks. It was my damn father that raised the stakes for good. Trust me, never start playing Guts for big money. You start getting people trying to mortgage their watches and their shoes just to stay in. It’s not a pretty sight.

Our only choice at this point was to go see a movie, so we headed out to Emeryville’s new shopping center which included a nice, new AMC theatre. There really wasn’t much to see, so instead of taking my advice to watch Lost in Translation, that Bill Murray movie directed by Sofia Coppola that I hear is really good and I STILL haven’t seen yet, we decided to take a chance and watch Mystic River. Oh my god. This is a decision on par with with Portland drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. This was the most god awful film I have ever sat through. Usually I can enjoy bad movies because I can make fun of the bad acting, or the terrible storyline, but this one seemed to go out of it’s way to deny any enjoyment whatsoever. There wasn’t a damn thing salvageable about this trash; the only way it could have been saved is had all the copies of the film burned up and saved the country from having to watch any of it. There were several fine actors in the film, Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon being two, who managed to take it seriously enough that it couldn’t be laughed at but had to work with material that should have been used to paper the bottom of a bird cage. It’s really sad…I like Kevin Bacon, but he just keeps going out of his way to make terrible movies. Willy thought this movie would be a good idea…I should have suspected something. The last time he wanted to see a movie it was the Hulk. There’s two hours of my live I’ll never get back. We all decided Willy wasn’t allowed to make any more movie choices for at least a year. Personally, I think he got off way too lightly. They were laughing at me because I came out of the theater with a stunned look on my face, but at least I managed to not scream out “This movie is Shit!” like Changomo did in the middle of it. I have some standards. We finished the night with dinner at the California Pizza kitchen, which was decent, I suppose. They make exotic pizzas and because they’re “special,” they can charge twice what they’re worth. It’s amazing what we as consumers will put up with. Anyways, this pretty much ended the night as we went back to my dad’s place, said goodbye to Changomo and his wife and ended up passing out on the couch watching tv. I was waiting for my friend Jules to give us a call, but she ended up calling after I had fallen asleep. Eh…her loss. Hell, maybe I’m becoming an old man. That’s two nights in a row I fell asleep way too early…oh well, at least I have my hair. *Knock, Knock*

I had quite the weekend this Halloween; much different than last year’s action-packed “Hide from the Trick or Treaters.” I decided, mostly at the last minute, to drive on up to San Francisco with a friend. I figured I’d get to bed nice and early the night before and be ready for the grueling 6 hour drive. This was not to be, however. When I came back from the movies, my friends B, Moodsquad and Newjen had already made themselves at home and were settling into a tournament bout of NBA Live 2004 on the ps2. To be honest, this is generally more entertaining than a movie, so I had to stop and listen to the trash talk and general nonsense that occurs during these “athletic” events. Now, Newjen goes by many names and none of them reflect well on him. His most recently earned name was Dirt Newjinski, a take off of Dirk Nowitzki, but more for his horribly cheap and dirty play. Moodsquad, on the other hand, has a reputation for playing fairly but also as a big whiner when things don’t quite go his way. B, who is the definitive Mouth from the South, is a guy who starts talking before the game even starts and stops only when he’s finally left the building. I may have to start charging admission to see these clowns in action. There’s singing, Moodsquad’s touching ballad “Computer Love” is highly effective in describing B’s uncanny luck, dancing, as B and Newjen complete victory laps around the couch, and more comedy than you can throw a controller at. I know. Moodsquad’s tried. Anyways, the three stooges managed to keep me up way past my bed time so I was hurting by the time I got to work…that wasn’t a good way to start a day where I had to drive 400 miles.

Once I finished up at work and picked up my friend, Willy, we headed on up to Oakland. It was a fairly uneventful drive and we consumed more Doritos than was good for us, but we balanced it out with a healthy Gatorade…at least that’s what we told ourselves. Once we got up to Oakland, we had to take the BART to San Francisco, or as the locals call it, The City! Yes, pretentious is actually selling those people up there short. They’re a lot like New Yorkers in that way; they believe the world revolves around them. How else do you explain those cities up north passing resolutions against the war? I mean, who the hell cares what a city thinks about a war, exactly? If you didn’t know, the BART is the subway system up there, short for the Bay Area Rapid Transit and a fairly efficient way to get around if you don’t mind standing next to the most bizarre cross section of humanity for half an hour. People were in their costumes heading on out to the City, which included a guy dressed like a giant penis. Yep…this is San Francisco, folks.

Once we got out onto Market Street, these two girls crossed…well, sort of wobbled past us. One was almost naked; she had painted on latex covering her top, a pair of black panties and the rest of her was painted red which also happened to be the color of her eyes. Whatever she and her friend was on, I wanted no part of. God knows where she woke up the next morning; probably in the middle of a porn shoot. That was our welcome to Halloween in San Fran…rather auspicious, wouldn’t you say? I know I did. I said, “Hey Willy, this is a rather auspicious beginning to the night.” Willy followed up with the question, “What’s auspicious mean?”

We were supposed to meet several people at the Marriot; our old friend Changomo and his wife, and one of his strange friend’s Andre. A word about Andre; he likes to take naked pictures of his girlfriends and show them to people. That really says it all, doesn’t it? He was dressed up as Dr. Evil; about 4 years too late, but hey, at least he was trying. I was dressed up as a shivering Los Angelinos. Did I mention it was at least 40 degrees up there? There were some brave and cold people up there with the costumes I witnessed. Andre’s Dr. Evil costume didn’t quite come out exactly right, though. He didn’t have a very good bald head covering; he bought a cheapie at Spencer’s Gifts so it actually looked like he was wearing a very flexible condom on his head. I may have been the first to mention this to him, but I certainly wasn’t the last. At least two other groups of people took pictures with the “condom head.” He was cool with it; he said it seemed to work better than his Dr. Evil attempt. Changomo showed up with the strangest hat I’ve ever seen; it was a giant hotdog in a bun sitting right on his head. In his left hand he carried a plastic trident which he said represented his power as the Hotdog King. I asked why he had started drinking without us, and how many would it take for me to catch up. His wife was dressed as a pirate, which was a pretty good costume and actually turned out to be the theme of the party we were set to go to. Unfortunately, Changomo never mentioned that little detail; seems he was busy sending out orders to his hotdog minions or something.

Setting out to take the Muni to Castro street turned out to be a bit of an adventure. None of us had ever taken the Muni, which is a local train that runs throughout the city. It turns out you need quarters and the machines had been changed to give out quarters if you typed in the special code. I say special code as it seems pressing the button marked H was too difficult for the guy in front of us. It took him at least 10 minutes to master this difficult puzzle at which time he picked up his quarters and angrily tried to enter them back into the machine. Changomo asked, “Hey, buddy, what are you doing?” The man said, “The guy over there said the Muni only takes coins. This damn machine gave me quarters!” We reassured him that quarters actually were defined as “change,” and then gave him the prerequisite 10 feet of space we all give to loonies. Once we jumped onto the Muni, we started discussing the costumes that we were seeing around us. There were some strange choices, including a guy dressed as David Beckham. Then again, maybe it really was David Beckham out to have fun wearing his own jersey…o.k., that just sounded stupid. I was telling my friends how I had seen two great costumes last week, one guy was dressed up as one of the Warriors and the other was dressed as one of the Furies, two of the gangs from that great 70’s movie The Warriors. None of them had ever even seen the movie. This shocked and depressed me; shocking because I thought it was a pretty damn common movie as our local channel 13 used to play it at least once a month for at least 5 years straight and depressing because it was yet another reminder that I’ve watched way too many movies. I then told them that it was based on the Anabasis, Xenophon’s account of his travels leading a Greek army through Turkey back in the 4th century B.C. You know, trying to salvage some intellectual points and to tell myself I hadn’t wasted my entire life. None of them had heard of Xenophon either. Damn…somehow, I have managed to make myself irrelevant to my own generation. This wasn’t supposed to happen until I was 40 and trying to use hip slang.

Once we arrived on Castro street, I have to say I was taken aback. There were thousands of people wandering about dressed in crazy costumes all the while loud dance music was pumping through the night’s air. It seems that the most popular costume for a woman was a Nurse; can’t argue with a classic. The most popular costume for a guy seemed to be a tag team of either Siegfried or Roy, complete with tiger gashes on the neck. Not exactly the most classy costume, but hey, it was pretty funny in a sick sort of way. We pushed our way through the crowds and started up towards Changomo’s wife’s friend’s house; the fella throwing the party. We found the place after some wanderings, and once we stepped in it was a pirate fantasy land. Most of the people were in various pirate motifs and there was even a ship deck with sails propped up in the yard complete with a steering wheel. Combine this with the fact that the party denizens were made up of internet millionaires and/or flamboyantly gay men, I have to say I felt a bit out of place. Marco, her friend, turned out to be a cool guy, if as queer as a three dollar bill. He was dressed as Liberace…or a pirate. One or the other. He had the craziest shoes; they had silver designs with sparkles all over them, a puffy shirt with lace, gold chains around his neck, fingers full of colorful rings and a foppish black curly wig. It was quite the sight, let me tell ya. We talked to several of the people there all the while loading up on alcohol. We ran into this particularly snobbish guy who was giving Andre a hard time about his costume. Andre managed to end that pretty quickly when he asked the guy if his costume was Andy Dick. The fact that his friend laughed at the joke only reinforced the fact that he really did look like Andy Dick. Andy wasn’t too amused, however, and retreated to another room. Score one for “condom head”! It turns out that Andy Dick was a guy who was in the ground floor of the web site Yahoo and got out before the crash. He’s one of the ”pretentious, snot nosed punks that thinks the world revolves around them just because they were lucky enough to pull out in time,” or so Changomo refers to them. Changomo’s not particularly impressed, as you can tell. It’s not sour grapes either; he’s pretty damn wealthy on his own. He just hasn’t gotten used to the snobbish name-droppers he gets to deal with now that he has money. Sounds like a nice problem to have, really. Anyways, the night was progressing pretty smooth until Willy decided to try and poison me with this drink he made. It wasn’t just that it was a strong alcoholic drink; it was the fact that it had at least 4 other flavors that were all fighting with one another. I swear, it was WWII in my stomach after I had some of it. Once we had our fill, we decided to walk on down to the wild street of Castro.